HealthyCal.org

By Daniel Weintraub

Gov. Jerry Brown’s veto of the new state budget Democrats passed this week represents a gamble that California’ deadlocked Legislature can find its way to a bipartisan solution that has evaded it all year.

Brown, in his veto message, blamed Republicans for refusing to go along with his proposal for a special election at which voters would be asked to ratify the extension of about $10 billion in taxes due to expire at the end of this month.

Brown also slammed his fellow Democrats, indirectly, by describing the budget they passed as filled with “legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings.” He noted that it would leave the state’s books unbalanced for years to come and add billions of dollars of new debt to the California’s already overburdened balance sheet.

But Brown’s rejection of the budget does not guarantee he is going to get anything better from the Legislature in the days and weeks ahead.

Republicans remain opposed to new taxes, and even to extending the temporary taxes that are about to expire. Democrats remain opposed to making the kind of spending cuts that would be required to balance the budget without those taxes. There appears to be very little middle ground.

Given that deadlock, the budget Brown vetoed Thursday made sense to legislative Democrats. It was their best chance in the short term to protect the programs they believe are vital to California without making concessions to Republicans that would have meant long-term consequences the Democrats could not accept.

This was the first budget to pass since voters last November enacted Proposition 25, which gave the majority party in the Legislature the power to write a budget with their votes alone, rather than the two-thirds majority that was required before.

But that measure left untouched the super-majority requirement for new taxes. And with Republicans opposed to higher taxes, the Democrats’ options are limited.

They could accept a deal offered by some Republicans to place on the ballot a measure that would have extended about $10 billion in temporary taxes that are about to expire. But in order to get that Republican support, Democrats would have to agree to a public vote on a tough new spending limit and rollbacks in public employee pensions, as well as a weakening of the states’ environmental protection laws.

With voters seemingly more opposed to taxes by the day, Democrats might place themselves in the position of holding an election at which their proposed taxes are voted down while the Republican proposals are approved. And even if the voters embraced the taxes, the levies would still be temporary, while the Republican measures would be locked into the state constitution.

That was a deal the Democrats simply could not accept.

The only other alternative for the Democrats is to pass a “responsible” budget on their own that cut spending to live within the revenues the state expects to collect during the next 12 months.

But the wisdom of doing that depends on your definition of the word “responsible.”

To outside analysts using standard bookkeeping principles, that means balancing projected revenues and spending. And with revenues dropping, Democrats would have had to cut deeply into schools, higher education, local government and the safety net.

Those cuts would have come on top of a round of reductions the Democrats approved in March. Those cuts reduced welfare grants and aid to the aged, blind and disabled, cut support for child care and trimmed health insurance subsidies for the low-income working poor. The Democrats also limited in-home support for the elderly and the disabled and cut services for people with developmental disabilities. The March package also cut $500 million each from the University of California and the Cal State University system, forcing another round of tuition increases on students and their families.

And so, rather than doubling down on those cuts, Democrats punted.

They voted to defer nearly $3 billion in payments due to the schools in the next fiscal year to the year after next. The schools would still get the money, but they would get it late. Many districts would have to borrow to cover cash shortfalls caused by the late payments from the state. But on the state’s books for the coming fiscal year, the deferral is as good as a budget cut, because the spending wouldn’t be counted until after the close of the fiscal year.

The budget also included about $1 billion in optimistic revenues assumptions. With tax collections in May running $400 million above earlier projections, the Democrats dedicated that money to the budget and then assumed that another $400 million would materialize next year. They are also counting on $200 million by requiring Internet retailers to collect sales tax on items they sell to Californians.

The Democrats were also hoping that the federal government would help, and the budget relies on $700 million in new payments for the Medi-Cal program that the state says the feds owe California.

Senate Republican Leader Bob Dutton called it an “irresponsible package” that did nothing to change “government as usual” in Sacramento. Brown seemed to agree. Even Democratic leaders in the Legislature conceded that their budget was less than perfect.

Assembly Speaker John Perez, D-Los Angeles, said the plan would close “more than half” of the state’s ongoing gap between spending and revenues, a step he described as “astonishing” given that Californians would pay lower taxes beginning July 1.

Sen. Mark Leno, D-San Francisco, chairman of the Senate Budget Committee, described the plan as the “best possible solution we could develop given the tools we had available.”

Democrats acknowledge that they would still have a hole of about $6 billion to fill in a general fund budget that next year will be around $90 billion. Their plan is to take a tax package to the voters in 2012, in a regular election when Democratic turnout will likely be higher than it would have been in a special election this year.

Many Democrats are hoping that the economy will continue to grow, tax collections will exceed projections, and some of the shortfall will be closed naturally. That may occur, and the state does have a history of economic recoveries that exceeded expectations. But even the most optimistic projections about the economy suggest that the state cannot grow its way out of its deficit. New taxes or lower spending are going to have to be part of the mix.

More ominously, the economy has lately been showing signs of renewed weakness. Employment growth has slowed, housing prices are still dropping, and the stock market is heading lower by the week. These trends could all lead to lower income tax collections and an even bigger deficit next year.

Brown has said since he took office that he did not want to continue the state’s tradition of hoping for the best while putting off the tough decisions required to pass a balanced budget. He is still hoping that Democrats and Republicans in the Legislature will agree to a deal that would extend the taxes until an election is held and the voters have a chance to weigh in.

But nobody, perhaps not even the governor, knows how long he is willing to wait. Once the new fiscal year begins, and payments to vendors and local government are delayed and a cash crunch looms, he might be forced to accept a flawed budget that looks very much like the one he rejected Thursday.

Daniel Weintraub is editor of the California Health Report at www.healthycal.org

Defenders of a program that provides health care to keep low-income people with disabilities from being hospitalized or placed in nursing homes sued today to block the state from eliminating the program.

The Adult Day Health Care program serves 35,000 people, including many older adults. It is a benefit provided through Medi-Cal, the subsidized health program financed by a combination of state and federal money.

The plaintiffs in the lawsuit, known as Darling et al v. Douglas, contend that the planned, Sept. 1 elimination of the program would put tens of thousands of people at risk of institutionalization, hospitalization, injury or death.

“Elimination of this program as a Medi-Cal benefit will not only cause irreparable harm to the tens of thousands of people affected by the cuts, but will also result in increased costs to the State and counties in hospitalization, nursing facility placements, Adult Protective Services, and emergency services,” Elissa Gershon, an attorney with Disability Rights California, said in statement.

The lawsuit contends that the Legislature’s decision in March to eliminate the program was illegal because the state has not assured that the people who now get those services can receive the care needed to avoid hospitalization or being placed in nursing homes.

The litigation follows on a case first filed in August 2009. A federal court stopped the state from cutting the program in September 2009 and February 2010.

The state had tried to reduce the maximum number of days a person could receive services from five days to three, regardless of need. The state later tried to restrict eligibility in a way that would have ended services to as many as 15,000 clients.

Those rulings, ironically, led the state to try to eliminate the entire program. The state is not required to provide the service under the terms of its relationship with the federal government to receive funding for Medi-Cal. But if it does provide it, the state must meet certain standards. State officials reason that eliminating the entire program will free them from that legal burden.

But supporters of the program say otherwise.

“The State cannot shirk its obligation to provide medically necessary services to each and every Medi-Cal participant who qualifies. If the State chooses to cut ADHC services across the board, it still must, according to federal law, continue to provide skilled nursing and therapy services to people who need them” said Anna Rich, attorney with the National Senior Citizens Law Center.

The plaintiffs in the case say that clients in the program average 78 years old and take six or more medications a day, for which nearly two-thirds require supervision or assistance. More than two-thirds also face at least three serious medical challenges including cardiovascular disease, dementia, and diabetes. The overwhelming majority are entirely dependent on Medi-Cal funding for their care at the adult day health centers.

-Daniel Weintraub

By MICHAEL GARDNER of the San Diego UnionTribune

SACRAMENTO–As the Sacramento budget stalemate over extending temporary taxes continues, will lawmakers turn to fees instead as a way to raise money for the cash-short state?

Previously the answer might have been an emphatic yes. But this year, thanks to new restrictions imposed by voters in November, legislators will find it harder to use fees as a substitute for taxes.

Fees added on to consumer bills already bring in billions of dollars to the treasury.

Californians pay extra fees on top of the normal price when they register their cars, go duck hunting, buy a big-screen television, pay the phone bill or even when they break the law, among dozens of other activities.

It may be just nickel-and-diming the consumer in many cases. But the charges add up, translating into real money for the state to keep many vital services rolling, from the CHP to the disposal of hazardous waste.

The fees either directly or indirectly help reload the state’s depleted general fund in two ways. Some of the add-ons can go directly into the general fund. Other fees are dedicated to selected programs and placed in what’s called “special fund” accounts. Gov. Jerry Brown proposes to borrow $5 billion from those special funds to balance his budget in 2011-2012.

Brown and lawmakers are locked in negotiations just days before a June 15 constitutional deadline to pass a budget for the fiscal year, which begins July 1. As it now stands, the state must close a nearly $10 billion gap over the next 13 months out of an $88.5 billion general fund.

For some time, the philosophy in the Capitol revolved around the thinking that fees were more palatable to voters than taxes. Fees adhere to a user-pays approach — those that receive a service or something else in return pay the bill. More importantly, fees could be imposed on a simple majority vote.

But Californians dramatically rewrote budgeting rules when they approved Proposition 26 in November. The initiative requires most new fees to be approved by a supermajority of lawmakers. That’s the same high two-thirds bar set for general taxes. The result: a slowdown in new fee proposals and a headache for those
programs that may be underfunded because the state is out of money.

That suits critics like Assemblyman Jim Nielsen, R-Gerber, just fine. Nielsen, the Assembly GOP’s point person on the budget, said fee revenues have escalated.
“Agencies desperate for more money found ways to get the money. The other way to get the money: fees,” Nielsen said.

Surpluses in some accounts disturb him. That money is being scooped up by lawmakers who borrow it to prevent deeper cuts in services.

“We’re collecting obscene amounts of money. That means we’re over-assessing, overtaxing. That tempts us to borrow more,” Nielsen said.

Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, said fees have been the only politically palatable way to advance many environmental goals given the aversion to general taxes.

“We would not be able to promote recycling or provide incentives to manufacturers,” Lowenthal said. “A lot of these programs are partnerships with the private sector.”

The most well-known — and used — is the beverage container deposit, which relies on companies to take back bottles and cans for recycling. Another is the $10 e-waste fee collected upfront when new computer monitors and televisions are sold.

Without fees, future green initiatives could come to a standstill, Lowenthal warned. For example, he is crafting legislation designed to encourage the safe disposal of mercury-tainted compact fluorescent lights. But with Proposition 26 on the books, he doubts he can secure a two-thirds vote for a fee that would help secure industry buy-in to run the program.

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, said burying environmental costs as part of the broader general fund is never a good idea.

“The public doesn’t always agree on what’s the best fees or taxes, but there seems to be more agreement when they know where it’s going,” Murray said.

So where is the money going?

DMV is a good starting point. Several surcharges are on the vehicle registration bill, some of which go to local programs. But one is hidden. It’s a $22 flat fee that goes for CHP programs. But it is included in the basic $54 registration fee. That $22 million raises about $600 million a year for the CHP,

Another $20 is levied on cars six years old or newer that allows motorists to skip the smog check. That fee covers about 6.5 million cars each year, and raises $130 million annually for various smog fighting programs.

Even routine car maintenance bills are not exempt, That set of new tires will cost $7 more when the $1.75 per-tire disposal fee is added on. It raised about $43 million this fiscal year to recycle or safely dispose of tires, although an estimated 11 million are still sent to landfills or dumped illegally every year.

Oil changes usually reflect the cost of recycling the used oil, although some service centers levy a separate “environmental fee” to cover handling costs. Do-it-yourselfers can get some money back — 40 cents per gallon — if they return the used oil to a certified collection center and request payment.

At the cash register, consumers are charged $6 to $10 for computer monitors and television screens to fund the safe disposal of dangerous electronic waste.
Phone and utility bills also contain surcharges. Some are flat fees, others based on usage.

For example, the California Public Utilities Commission collects six mandatory fees to pay for various initiatives. Among those: the “lifeline” program subsidizing landline bills for the poor and a separate initiative to ensure the visually-impaired have access to phones. Another program provides phone services to high-cost, far-flung areas that would otherwise not be served by the industry because of the costs.

The California Energy Commission also taps power bills for many of its programs.

Individual ratepayer amounts depend on use and whether the provider is publicly owned or investor-owned.

The surcharges collectively amount to nearly $500 million for a range of programs, from conservation to research to helping the poor pay their bills.

Another $100 million flows to the Energy Commission out of its share of DMV fees.

The state collects more than add-on fees, of course. And many are for services, such as paying for state reviews of projects and state licenses.

Many motorists are undoubtedly surprised, and irritated, by the penalties layered on top of traffic tickets.

That base $100 fine can quickly grow to nearly $500 after various local and state penalties are imposed. The state fees include an additional $100 “penalty assessment” and a $20 “state surcharge.”

When the bounty is divided among cities and counties, it helps to fund the courts, emergency medical services, emergency medical air transportation and DNA testing. Each ticket also produces $20 for the state’s general fund.

SOME HISTORY:
1978: Voters pass the landmark property tax protection measure Proposition 13 that also made general taxes harder to increase by imposing a two-thirds majority requirement.
1997: The state Supreme Court court ruled that fees dedicated for certain purposes only needed a simple majority vote.
2010: Voters approved Proposition 26, which requires many types of fees to be approved by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature and the governor’s signature.

SOME EXAMPLES OF COMMON STATE-CHARGED CONSUMER FEES:

VEHICLES:
$22 for the CHP. Unseen because it is folded into the larger vehicle registration fee.
$20 smog fee for motorists with cars six years old or newer who pay the fee to avoid getting a smog check.

E-WASTE
$10 charged at the time of purchase to cover the costs of the electronic waste collection program, mostly targeted at televisions and computer screens.

RECYCLING:

A nickel or a time, depending on the size of the container, for deposits paid at the cash register to run the beverage container recycling program.

HUNTING:
A normal license is $43.46, but to take waterfowl a special “duck stamp” costs another $18.93.

By Daniel Weintraub

The good news for Gov. Jerry Brown is that Californians overwhelmingly agree with his proposal for a special election on his plan to extend temporary taxes to help erase the state’s budget shortfall.

The bad news for Brown, however, is that those same voters are not nearly as enthusiastic about the plan itself. Many apparently want a chance to vote on it so they can vote it down.

Those are among the findings from a new, independent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California.

The survey of more than 2,000 adults also unearthed new evidence suggesting that the safest route for Brown, politically, might be to repackage his plan into one that simply shifts services, and taxes, from the state to local governments, which are much more popular with the voters.

The poll, taken just after Brown released his revised budget in May, found that 76 percent of likely voters think voters should be asked to make some of the decisions about taxing and spending in the new budget. Just 21 percent of likely voters say the governor and the Legislature should reserve this power to themselves.

A large majority of voters (62 percent) also say they favor the broad outlines of Brown’s revised proposal, which would extend or re-impose higher taxes on income, cars, and sales to raise about $11 billion a year.

But that support craters when voters are asked about the specific taxes in his plan.

Only 46 percent of likely voters say they support those tax measures. Fifty-eight percent of Republicans and 53 percent of independents oppose the plan, while 49 percent of Democrats support it.

And even among those who say they favor a special election, the tax plan loses: 47 percent to 45 percent.

“Californians have favorable views of the governor’s revised budget plan and his special election idea,” Mark Baldassare, PPIC president and CEO, said in a statement released with the poll results. “Yet the fact that fewer than half support his tax and fee package raises questions about the outcome if the voters have their say.”

Brown’s best hope, the poll suggests, might be to reinforce an idea that has been a big part of his plan from the beginning: a shift of services, and the money to pay for them, from the state to local governments.

Under Brown’s proposal, about $6 billion in criminal justice, health and welfare programs would be transferred from the state to local government. The same amount of money – with revenue from the extended taxes – would also go to the counties. And even after those taxes expired in five years, the state would still be on the hook to keep transferring the money to the locals.

This would help Brown balance the state budget because even if the state is shifting the revenue from the extended taxes to the locals, it would also be shedding responsibility for the programs and their cost. Without the shift and the tax extensions, the state would continue to pay for the programs but it would lose the revenue anyway, when the taxes expired.

As it stands, though, this shift, known in the Capitol as “realignment,” is only part of Brown’s plan. The PPIC poll suggests he might fare better if that was all he asked the voters to approve.

The survey found that only 18 percent of voters say they trust state government to do what is right always or most of the time. And 72 percent say state government is run by a few big interests looking out for themselves rather than the general welfare of all Californians.

In contrast, about 35 percent of voters say they can trust local government to do what is right always or most of the time. And 78 percent of likely voters say they would prefer local officials rather than the state to have control over how state money is spent at the local level.

All of this points to a strategy that asks the voters to approve the tax extensions by appealing to their desire to shrink state government and empower local officials to spend the money.

This approach might even play on the voters’ most emphatic judgment about state spending: they hate spending money on prisons. Of all the major programs, prisons are the only one for which voters say they would not be willing to raise taxes. Likely voters across the political spectrum agree with this position.

Brown’s plan calls for shifting thousands of prisoners and parolees to local supervision. The result would be a cut in the state prison population, and in its budget.

According to the results of the PPIC poll, a plan that cuts the size of state government, slashes spending on prisons and gives more power to local officials might be the one thing that could overcome the voters’ reluctance to extend, re-impose or raise taxes, even on a temporary basis.

By Daniel Weintraub

The U.S. Supreme Court decision requiring California to reduce overcrowding in its prisons has triggered an outcry from legislators and the criminal justice community about the possibility of thousands of dangerous felons being released to the streets before the end of their terms.

That’s not likely to happen.

But the decision has shone a spotlight on one of the fastest growing parts of the state budget at a time when Gov. Jerry Brown and lawmakers are trying to cut anywhere they can. And the opinion has the potential to reignite a decades-long debate over whether California can and should do more to reduce crime by ensuring that felons who leave prison are as prepared as possible to start new, law-abiding lives on the outside.

The state now spends more than $10 billion a year on prisons, about twice what it spends from the general fund for the University of California and the California State University systems combined.

That’s a remarkable turnaround in a fairly short time. Just 15 years ago, in the mid-1990s, California was spending more than twice as much on its universities as its prisons.

Why the change? Prison costs have risen steadily due to longer sentences, more inmates sent to prison, higher salaries for correctional officers and more money spent on health care, while in the universities the state has turned to students and their families to shoulder more and more of the cost of their education.

The high court decision this week upheld lower court rulings forcing California to improve conditions in the prisons, especially the medical care given inmates. While they will never get much sympathy from the public, inmates have the right to basic health care, the courts have found, because a prison sentence is not the same as a death sentence.

With dozens of inmates dying unnecessarily because of inadequate care, the courts found that the conditions amounted to cruel and unusual punishment, which is prohibited by the Constitution.

The question now is how to fix the problem. While the state must reduce its inmate population by 30,000 over the next two years, the order does not require a wholesale release of inmates who are behind bars now. Other measures, some long recommended by prison reformers and in place in other states, could reduce the number of inmates in prison without shortening the term of anyone who is already locked up.

Gov. Brown has already proposed that the state shift between 10,000 and 15,000 inmates per year to the counties along with the money to pay for incarcerating them. It costs more than $50,000 a year to keep an inmate in state prison, and roughly half as much to lock someone up for a year in a county jail.

Under Brown’s plan, the counties would take over supervision of non-violent felons sentenced to three years or less and parolees who are returned to prison, usually to serve less than a year.

But Brown’s prison proposal is part of a larger plan to transfer billions of dollars in services to local government. That plan hinges on the Legislature or the voters approving the extension of temporary taxes that are expiring this year. So far, lawmakers have not agreed to do that, or even to call an election at which voters could decide the issue.

Some in Sacramento have suggested that the court ruling could give new ammunition to supporters of the tax extensions if they go on the ballot, because voters will not want to risk seeing inmates released from prison. But polls have repeatedly shown that the prison system is the program voters want to cut first, and protect the least when it is time to reduce spending.

While there is general support among voters for funding public safety, broadly defined, Californians are unlikely to raise their own taxes if they believe the money is for improving conditions in the prisons or in local jails.

Another option, at least over the longer term, is to improve rehabilitation and the services offered to inmates on their way out of prison. This idea was one-half of a grand compromise struck in 2007 by then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the two parties in the Legislature.

The Democrats wanted to improve substance abuse treatment, education, and job training and help inmates with mental health counseling, housing and job searches just before and after they were released. The Republicans wanted to build more prisons. The final deal allowed for both, but the rehabilitation programs have not been sustained, in part because the state ran out of money to pay for them.

If the state can reinvigorate that effort, it is possible California could see less crime and lower costs if at least a share of the thousands of inmates whose prison terms end every year remain crime-free. Currently, about 70 percent of them end up back in prison within three years, either for committing new crimes or for violating the conditions of their parole. By one estimate, if new programs could reduce the recidivism rate by just 10 percent, they would pay for themselves.

The Supreme Court decision might also prompt lawmakers to consider fundamental changes in the state’s sentencing laws. The last time Brown was governor, in the mid-1970s, he signed a law ending open-ended terms for most inmates and replacing them with what are known as determinant sentences. The idea was supported by conservatives who thought too many criminals were serving too short of terms and by liberals who thought the opposite.

But what has ensued is a patchwork of sentencing laws driven largely by the political passions of the moment. Anecdotal reports of particularly disturbing crimes have led lawmakers to pass measures lengthening the term for this crime or that, without much regard to how all the sentences fit together.

Legislators also limited the ability of inmates to earn shorter terms by showing remorse and evidence of rehabilitation. While they can reduce their sentences by working or going to school behind bars, these have become almost embedded in the original sentence itself. Without more subjective incentives, some experts believe, inmates have little reason to improve themselves, and this makes it more likely that they will re-offend when they leave prison, as almost all of them eventually do.

A bipartisan task force led by former Gov. George Deukmejian, who drove the state’s prison building boom in the 1980s, recommended that the state establish a sentencing commission to create a new, more flexible system for locking up felons and releasing them. The hope was that a more rational set of sentencing laws would save money and reduce crime. But the Legislature was reluctant to create such a body, and Schwarzenegger never pushed them very hard to do so.

Since then, the state has careened toward what has seemed like an inevitable collision with the Supreme Court, delaying but not preventing the eventual day of reckoning.

Now that day has come, and stalling tactics, court motions and half-measures will no longer work. It remains to be seen what California will do instead.

By Brian Joseph of the Orange County Register
For HealthyCal.org

SACRAMENTO – In this time of crushing budget deficits and guaranteed public pension plans, one sentiment seems widespread among voters: government always grows. Even with cutbacks and a floundering economy, many Americans clearly believe that government only gets bigger.

But in California, government has indeed shrunk by one metric: the number of employees on the payroll. Employment numbers independently collected by the state Employment Development Department show that since the housing market collapsed in 2008 more than 100,000 federal, state and local government jobs have been eliminated in California, creating the worst job market in that sector since at least 1990.

All of those lost jobs can be attributed to cuts made to address the state’s chronic, multi-billion budget deficit or to the economic conditions that contributed to the deficit, California economists say.

“It’s indicative to how very wired government is into the economy,” said Christopher Thornberg, founding principle at Beacon Economics in Los Angeles. When the economy is weak, government contracts. “It never shrinks voluntarily,” Thornberg said.

For public school teachers, city planners and other workers at all levels of government, the current conditions are rough. More than 3,600 government jobs have been lost, on average, each month since June 2008, when government employment in California peaked at more than 2,522,000. In all, more than 118,000 government jobs (5 percent) were lost through March 2011, the worst 40-month period in that sector since at least January 1990.

That doesn’t compare to the pain faced by the construction industry, which lost 280,000 jobs (33 percent) during that period, or the manufacturing industry, which lost more than and 201,000 jobs (14 percent). But over the last year, the government sector has been the biggest drag on California’s job recovery while construction, manufacturing and other industries have begun to rebound.

In government, the hardest hit were employees of school districts, counties and cities, who combined accounted for the vast majority of the lost government jobs. State government, on the other hand, lost a few thousand jobs while the federal government actually increased its job offerings in California by a few thousand, all in the Department of Defense.

The city of San Jose, for example, cut almost 800 jobs in fiscal year 2010-11 and is now looking to cut almost another 600, bringing the municipality’s total employment to 5,252. The city of Costa Mesa, which employs 472 people, has begun the process of potentially laying off as many as 213 of its employees, reducing its workforce by as much as 45 percent. Sacramento County has lost 2,524 positions since fiscal year 2008-09, leaving it with a total of 11,600 jobs — and more cuts are on the way.

“We are looking at our fourth consecutive year of reductions, and we know there will be more service reductions coming in the next fiscal year,” said county spokeswoman Chris Andis. She said the county has reorganized how it does business to save money while minimizing the impact to services, but even so service delivery takes longer, building inspections may not be done on the same day and phone calls take longer to return. “It has been tough… and we have more to do,” Andis said.

Although the recent declines have been due the recession and the housing crisis, by one measure, government employment was falling long before then. Per capita employment in government peaked last decade in 2002 at a little more than 700 government workers per 10,000 Californians. Since then, there have been two sizable drops in employment numbers, sandwiched around moderate gains from 2004 to 2007. By 2010, the state had roughly 656 government employees per 10,000 Californians.

“It is a perfect storm,” said Steven Levy, director of the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy in Palo Alto. California was walloped by two recessions in short succession, while more and more government employees are reaching retirement age, forcing agencies to choose between paying for current employees or retirement costs. The result has been that government employment in California has not kept pace with the population, although Levy noted that the state has been among the lowest in per capita government employment. “We’ve always been fairly frugal,” he said.

The employment figures collected by the state Employment Development Department represent its best approximation of an objective picture of the job market. The process is sealed off from any politicians who might want to pump up employment numbers to make themselves look good.

The department, however, uses a slightly different methodology for collecting government employment data than private employment. For private employers, the department bases its numbers off of a monthly survey of 42,000 businesses. For government employers, it collects reports from all of them in the state.

Thus, the government employment data is, in theory, more accurate because it’s derived from a census, while the private employer data is estimated from a survey. But that’s assuming the governments do a good job of tracking their payroll, which they might not always do. Both sets of data have a margin of error.

At the same time, the Employment Development Department also collects data on wages. From 2007 to 2009, total wages paid to government employees increased a little over 4 percent — which translates into a jump of more than $5 billion.

“Part of that is going to be for overtime,” said Jane V. Hall, an economist and government policy specialist at Cal State Fullerton, noting that the functions of lost jobs often still have to be filled in government, even if there are fewer employees. Sometimes that means the remaining employees have to work more, and labor laws require that some of those employees be paid time and a half, contributing to an increase in payroll costs

So, in other words, even when government shrinks, sometimes it also grows.